On unsatisfiedness and other maladies– Douthat in NYT:
‘Since the 2022 midterm elections, the end of the Trump era in American politics has become, at least, a 50-50 proposition. While Ron DeSantis surges in multiple national polls, the former president has busied himself shilling $99 digital trading cards to his most devoted fans. The promised battle royale, in which Trump emerges from Mar-a-Lago to smite his challenger and reclaim his throne, may yet be in the offing. But it’s also possible that Trump 2024 will end up where many people expected Trump 2016 to go, diminishing into an act of self-indulgence that holds on to his true loyalists but can’t win primary-season majorities.
If that’s how Trump goes out, doing a slow fade while DeSantis claims his mantle, the people who have opposed Trump most fiercely, both the Resistance liberals and the Never Trump Republicans, will probably find the ending deeply unsatisfying.’
(…)
‘Nor will there be a dramatic repudiation of the Trumpist style. If DeSantis defeats Trump, it will be as an imitator of his pugilism and populism, as a politician who promises to fight Trump’s battles with more effectiveness and guile.’
(…)
‘These realities are already yielding some righteous anger, a spirit evident in the headline of a recent essay by Bill Lueders at The Bulwark: “You’re Only Leaving Trump Now?” Never forget, Lueders urges, that if Republicans abandon Trump it won’t be because of his long list of offenses against decency and constitutional government; it will be only because, at last, they’re sure he cannot win.
As an original Never Trumper, I don’t begrudge anyone this reaction. If Trump fades, it will be a victory for places like The Bulwark, but people naturally want something more than a quiet, limited victory after a long existential-seeming campaign. They want vindication. They want to feel as if everyone finally agrees: Never again.
But an unsatisfying absence of repudiation or vindication is a normal feature of democratic life.’
Read the article here.
Some of my best friends can’t stand Douthat, but he is mainly right here. Perhaps obvious, but the obviousness of certain things has been easily forgotten lately.
Yes, Trump is abandoned (by some) because he doesn’t look like a winner more.
Democracy turned out be just another sports tournament: there is no alternative for winning.
His successor is his imitator, not his nemesis. And as has been pointed out, his imitator might be more dangerous than he was.
Vindication doesn’t belong to democracy. I know, many people regret this. Losing election is all there is. Alas.
But given everything we have seen it is still possible that Trump will follow Snowden: asylum in Russia. If Trump manages to get out of the US, that is.